I asked my kids this hypothetical one day: say you have a band where over time, one by one, the members are replaced, so that in, oh, I don't know, 20 years none of the original members are left. Keep in mind the group's name never changed. Is it the same band as it was when it started?

When Birtles, Shorrock and Gobles toured under the name "Birtles, Shorrock and Gobles, the voices of the Little River Band", the dude filed a law suite and i believe they even had to withdraw a dvd that I have at home. Absolute bunch of bollocks.

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This reminds me of Grand Funk Railroad. Though they have two original members, they not only pulled dicey legal maneuvers to fire Mark Farner ~ the most important member, who wrote most of their biggest songs and all their best ones ~ but then sued him when he mentioned Grand Funk in adverts of his solo shows.

Just a disgrace, and really sad, to take the identity of someone's own life's work away from them.

Perhaps Jethro Tulls wins an award as the longest lasting performing rock band that got down to only one original member in the shortest period of time...

There has to be a tour title in there somewhere...

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King Crimson probably wins the award (depending on how one wants to split hairs). Officially speaking the entire performing band bar Fripp quit at the end of the tour for the first album. Greg Lake left to join ELP and McDonald & Giles quit to work as a duo (for only one album as it turned out, but its a good one) and to become session musicians, and also according to Fripp they didnt want to be touring anymore since they had just fallen in love. No - not with each other. If you want to see who they fell in love with, check out the cover of the McDonald/Giles album, released the year after they quit King Crimson.

So on the second album the only official member was Fripp (unless you want to count their original non-performing, but credited band member Peter Sinfield who provided only lyrics and concert lighting, never receiving any musician credit until the third album - VCS3 synth on two songs - and no musician credit at all on the first two albums and fourth album, after which Fripp fired him, so really I'd consider that to be just a bit of session work for the band), but two of the three former members appeared as session musicians (as did another from the proto-King Crimson band 'Giles, Giles & Fripp'. Peter Giles from GG&F played bass, Michael Giles from both bands played drums, and Greg Lake from the original KC (and by that time currently in ELP) sang most, but not all of the lead vocals. There was no tour for the second album and by the third album there was a completely new King Crimson lineup with not even any guest/session musician appearances by any ex-member..

Yes has none. Anderson hasn't been with the band since 2008, when he fell ill and the others didn't wait for his recovery to start touring again. Chris Squire was the last original member. Now led by Steve Howe.

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Most recent Yes tour (in US) included original member Tony Kaye. Obviously a move to boost authenticity.

Yes has none. Anderson hasn't been with the band since 2008, when he fell ill and the others didn't wait for his recovery to start touring again. Chris Squire was the last original member. Now led by Steve Howe.

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Unless you count ARW as Yes as well, which would make sense given that ARW has more founding members than the "real" Yes.

Foreigner also has a tour coming up with the entire original lineup AND the latter-day lineup. Can't say Mick Jones isn't trying!

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I saw that, that's very cool. I randomly saw them when they toured with Journey and Mick was out sick. So it literally was 100% a cover band. What killed me is that no one in the audience really seemed to notice.

Unless you count ARW as Yes as well, which would make sense given that ARW has more founding members than the "real" Yes.

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As a fan of those men and, yeah, given their superior lineup of ex-members, I do consider it a Yes experience (was happy to catch them last year). But I don't count them for this thread, as it's the band actually billing themselves as Yes that fits the premise being lamented. "Anderson Rabin Wakeman" is truth in advertising. "Yes," in my opinion, is not.

Talking of groups who managed a high turnover of personnel in a short time, cult Scottish beat group The Poets (who existed from 1962-1971) fascinate me in this regard. Their line up is relatively stable in their early era from 1962 - 1966, with out of 5 members, only the rhythm guitarist and the drummer being replaced. But between their early 1966 single ‘Baby Dont you do it’ and their early 1967 single ‘Wooden Spoon’, the entire personnel other than the rhythm guitarist (who wasn’t an original anyway) has switched. Not only that, but by 1968, after more line up changes, only the bass player remained from even the ‘Wooden Spoon’ line up! They had a complete turnover of original members by 1966 and (other that the bassist) nearly had a second complete turnover by 1968! Crazy.

I asked my kids this hypothetical one day: say you have a band where over time, one by one, the members are replaced, so that in, oh, I don't know, 20 years none of the original members are left. Keep in mind the group's name never changed. Is it the same band as it was when it started?